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Full-Text Articles in Law
Lawyering To The Lowest Common Denominator: "Strickland's" Potential For Incorporating Underfunded Norms Into Legal Doctrine, Lauren Sudeall
Lawyering To The Lowest Common Denominator: "Strickland's" Potential For Incorporating Underfunded Norms Into Legal Doctrine, Lauren Sudeall
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This symposium article explores how ineffective assistance of counsel doctrine, by its design, may incorporate and exacerbate the failings of an underfunded indigent defense system. Specifically, it highlights two aspects of the Strickland v. Washington standard for ineffective assistance of counsel: first, its inability to effectively address issues of underfunding through its two-prong test of deficient performance and prejudice; and, second, the way in which its eschewal of specific substantive guidelines for attorney performance in favor of reliance on "prevailing professional norms" may allow legal doctrine to be influenced by anemic, localized practice norms resulting from a lack of resources. …
Court Appointment Of Attorneys In Civil Cases: The Constitutionality Of Uncompensated Legal Assistance Note, Bruce A. Green
Court Appointment Of Attorneys In Civil Cases: The Constitutionality Of Uncompensated Legal Assistance Note, Bruce A. Green
Faculty Scholarship
Whether an individual becomes a party to judicial proceeding involuntarily, as a criminal or civil defendant, or voluntarily, as a civil plaintiff seeking redress of an injury, the assistance of counsel will increase his chances for a favorable disposition. When an impecunious litigant is unable to retain counsel, the question arises of who must bear the burden created by the complexity of adjudication. Although the Supreme Court has been sympathetic to the need for counsel in criminal cases, an indigent litigant in civil cases often will be denied legal assistance, and therefore will bear the burden himself In other instances, …